My suspension mods: Skunk2 race springs, Ingalls camber kit.

Long story short. I got an alignment done, car drove straight as an arrow. 3 weeks later the car starts to pull to the left. I went to get another alignment done today (same shop) and found out my camber kit bolts were loose. They adjusted everything and got the alignment within spec. They forgot to give me a printout this time. I drove the car home, it drives worse than before. It is very sensitive to the road. It will drive straight if the road is flat and completely smooth. When there are small imperfections in the road, the car will pull either left or right. Is this a camber, caster, or toe problem?

 

not sure, but I'd take it back to them and tell them it's even worse than before, they should fix it for free...they should at least double check it.

- Nathan

 

sounds like Toe... if you have positive toe, it is more responsive to the road. negative toe is more forgiving.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vain &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">sounds like Toe... if you have positive toe, it is more responsive to the road. negative toe is more forgiving.</TD></TR></TABLE>

hmm i never knew that.

my mustang would drive really well on flat pavement

but any shitty road (most of our roads in Connecticut), it would pull left or right.

i had to get 2 wheels alignments done, and they handed well for like a week, and after awhile i had the same problems as the top poster.

 

Dispite popular belief, toe will NEVER cause a car to pull in one direction or the other. Toe may effect how the reacts over bumps, but more than likely its not a toe issue. Cars will pull to the side with more camber or pull to the side with less caster.... toe will NOT cause a pull.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JustROLLIN &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Dispite popular belief, toe will NEVER cause a car to pull in one direction or the other. Toe may effect how the reacts over bumps, but more than likely its not a toe issue. Cars will pull to the side with more camber or pull to the side with less caster.... toe will NOT cause a pull. </TD></TR></TABLE>

do you even know what Toe is? did you read what he wrote? i'm pretty sure its toe.

anyways, i used the wrong terms. toe-in [ negative ] and toe-out [ positive ] is what i meant. and since i'm too lazy to explain to you.. read this: http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racet....html
or this: http://www.canadiandriver.com/...8.htm
or this: http://stockcarracing.com/tipstricks/31519/
or this: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/...n.jsp

i have also experienced severe toe-out as well as toe-in and can back up what i said.

but.. it is also true that Camber can cause pull .. but it will only pull to one side if the camber does not balance out [ from both sides ].

 

The specs for my driver side are a little different than the specs for my passenger side. I wish I had a printout so I could post the actual #'s.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JustROLLIN &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Dispite popular belief, toe will NEVER cause a car to pull in one direction or the other. Toe may effect how the reacts over bumps, but more than likely its not a toe issue. Cars will pull to the side with more camber or pull to the side with less caster.... toe will NOT cause a pull. </TD></TR></TABLE>
yes it will. maybe not so much if the toe is off by the same amount on both sides, but let's say the right tire is straight and the left tire points slightly outward. the car will pull to the left. and bad toe could mean that both tires are pointed slightly left but one more so than the other [with steering wheel straight]. just examples, but see what I mean?

and yes, caster plays a role as well. the less caster [axis is more vertical] will make the steering more "touchy" I guess you'd say. more caster makes it smoother. but can you even adjust caster on these cars or does the kit allow you to do that?

are all of your balljoints good? when I got my mustang aligned years ago, the shop couldn't even do it because everything was so worn out that it wouldn't stay aligned anyway. I'm sure your components are a tad newer, tho...

 

The balljoints are fine. I remember them saying something about caster being a little off. If I remember correctly, my caster on the driver front was 0.8 degrees.

 

you should have positive caster... i'm not sure what the factory specs are on caster though.

edit:

just did some reading - it seems like a few people have swapped UCA's [ left to right, right to left ] .. which increases caster [ effectively increasing stability, and supposedly handling? ].

anyone have input on this?